Long-time Senator Al Novstrup (R-3/Aberdeen) says his motto is “Be nice to everyone” and sells his own candidacy by emphasizing the importance of building relationships in the Legislature.
Evidently, among his colleagues in Pierre, being nice and building relationships does not extend to Legislative Research Council staff. Yesterday Wenzel Cummings told the Executive Board that he’s quitting his $105,100/year job as code counsel after just one year because legislators have treated him and his coworkers like crap:
Cummings said the legislative research council staff works very hard for the state legislators and it was a job he was proud to do, but the public criticism of the staff became too much for his mental health, prompting him to find work elsewhere.
“I began a rather robust look for another position in another state. It makes me sad to do that because it makes me have to leave my family one more time,” Cummings said.
Cummings was raised in South Dakota, and came back to work for the state government five years ago to be with his aging mother.
Cummings described an award that was passed around the legislative research council office to the staff member that was publicly criticized by legislators at any given time as a way to find humor in an otherwise humiliating situation.
“You cannot criticize one of your staff in public without it diminishing all of your staff,” Cummings told the board.
“It wasn’t worth it because of the treatment of this office by the legislature,” Cummings said of his job [Shannon Marvel, “Legislative Research Staffer Resigns, Citing Disrespectful Treatment by SD Lawmakers,” The Globe, 2020.06.08].
Executive Board members lauded Cummings’s work—Rep. Taffy Howard (R-33/Rapid City) referred to Sturgis native Cummings’s outstanding service and great ideas; public drunk, liar, and E-Board chair Senator Brock Greenfield (R-2/Clark) told Wenzel, “[Y]ou have been an asset, we always recognized your talent, and it’s sad to see you go”—but a fat lot of good that does when good talent has already turned its back on the Legislature’s alienating arrogance.
It appears Senator Novstrup, Senator Greenfield, and the rest of the Legislature need to spend less time building their chummy relationships with each other and their drinking-buddy lobbyists and more time building a positive work environment for the full-time LRC employees who make it possible for our party-time legislators to do the people’s business.
I have a feeling that “party-time legislators” was not a typo.
Mr. Cummings, by many accounts relayed to grudznick, was not very nice to Mr. Novstrup. Mr. Cummings was probably told, right after this meeting, to make sure the door doesn’t break when it hits him in the ass on the way out. I suspect this young LRC fellow was offended that Mr. Novstrup knew more about the law bills than he did.
Mr. Novstrup, a longtime businessman and boss, is used to making tough employee decisions. This one was probably very easy.
WNAX plays clips of Cummings’s statement to the Executive Board. He said he was planning to build a house and would have retired here, but the Legislature’s treatment of him and his LRC colleagues in the 2020 Session was bad enough to change his mind.
“Crap” seems to mean Senate/blatantly unconstitutional. Sdpb today
I thought that a couple of things done by LRC last session were wrong. I respect the LRC staff, but they can be wrong, too.
Those huge bills striking “obsolete laws” that are often called “clean-up” have had a bad history in South Dakota since the 1980s. They violate the one subject rule and they are often used to bury significant changes to law. I didn’t flag any such instances in the bills this year, but it’s best to clean up title by title, and get the agency and public input before introducing the bills.
Then there is the matter of agency rules, which should be modified or repealed by rulemaking, not legislative action.
Donald, I’ve made mistakes at work, too, but the people I work for have managed to point out my errors without making me feel like giving up my house and moving out of my home state.